John L. Anderson, Ph.D., President of the Illinois Institute of Technology, spoke at the university’s commencement ceremony in Mathikere (Bangalore) last Saturday, January 11, 2014. The ceremony was held in the JRD Auditorium at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NAIS).

“For many years, Illinois Tech has been a university of choice in the United States for Indian students seeking post-graduate degrees that are academically challenging and built upon a foundation of excellence,” says Anderson, who is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. “We are therefore proud to offer talented professionals, who are working full-time and living here in India, the opportunity to earn a U.S. master’s degree from our university.”

Other prominent leaders at the commencement ceremony included Dr. Anil Menon, President, Smart + Connected Communities and Deputy Chief Globalisation Officer at Cisco; M. Muthukumar, Vice President of Engineering of Juniper Networks; Satish Vasant Ghatge, Managing Director of Ghatge Patil Transports; and Parth Amin, Founder and Chairman of the SLK Group and Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of SLK Software. Chandrasekhar, Ghatge and Amin are alumni of the university.

Since 1998, Illinois Tech has offered professional master’s degrees programs to qualified bachelor’s degree graduates who live and work in India. The initiative, via multimedia distance learning in Bangalore, was started at the request of Motorola so that the company’s engineers could obtain master’s degrees without resigning their employment positions.

Today, engineers from more than 20 companies are enrolled and degree programs in computer science; electrical, network, manufacturing, software and telecommunications engineering; microelectronics and VLSI; and information technology management are offered in Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Mumbai, as well as Bangalore.